US envoy George Mitchell held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday in his bid to push for a resumption of Arab-Israeli peace talks.
After meetings with Mubarak, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman that lasted more than two hours, Mitchell made a short statement to reporters.
"We reiterated the shared commitment of the United States and Egypt
to comprehensive peace in the Middle East including an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution," Mitchell said.
"The United States is asking all the parties - Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab states - to take responsibility for peace through concrete actions that will help create a positive context for the relaunch of negotiations," he added.
Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
on Wednesday and will meet him again on Friday to push for a West Bank settlement freeze, a key demand of the United States and the Palestinians.
He will also meet with Jordan's King Abdullah.
Mitchell did not comment on whether a planned meeting at next week's United Nations General Assembly between US President Barack Obama, Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
would go ahead.
Abbas has made a resumption of peace negotiations with Israel,
suspended since December, conditional on halting settlement activity as stipulated by a US-backed 2003 peace "road map" charting a course towards Palestinian statehood.
Netanyahu has said he would be prepared to temporarily limit the scope of building but projects under way would continue.
Mubarak called on Israel to stop all settlement activities and resume talks with Palestinians in a meeting with Netanyahu in Cairo on Sunday.
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